I like nothing on MTV. But there’s an episode of True Life that is very interesting. “I Stutter” is the title. I relate to this, because I stutter also. The show revolves around three people’s lives. I am watching and typing, so it’ll be a poorly organized post.

First person is Tim. He’s 23, and he has a severe stutter. Tim sounds like a machine that repeats the sounds of letters over and over. Example would be “I a-a-a-m from Wa-wa-wa-washington D-d-d-C”. Tim has had his stutter for a long time. He was in some speech program when he was 16, and was told to talk slow. It worked but someone made fun of him and he gave up. Nothing else has helped. We see him try to order a pizza, with trouble. It’s hard for him to pay the bills because of his stutter holding him back from good jobs. Bills are late, and he’s panicking.

The next person up is Caryn. As the segment starts, she meets someone and couldn’t get out “Caryn”, so she was “Jen”. She developed a mild stutter, and tries to cover it up over the years. The segment is about the speech program she signed up for. The therapist asks Caryn and her dad questions, and do whatever therapists do.

Third person is Jessica. A girl trying to be Miss New York with her stutter. I’m skipping the segment, because I’m low on time. And honestly, I find it boring.

As the show goes on, we see Caryn again going through her program. She is talking about her problems with parents and friends and hear the opinions. The program is a group of people working on issues, dealing with “Hang ups” first. As Caryn followed the instructions and calls a person, the person on the line hung up on her. This was one of her fears and it made her feel bad. The little clip ends with Jessica’s pageant stuff. Skipped.

Tim is up again. He’s having trouble paying the rent, or for food. He wants to be a bartender or some job where he can earn a lot of money from tips and such. On the phone calling for a job, he gets stuck on the letter j in “job” and then gets hung up on. Tim asks a friend for help and it goes smoothly. He hopes to find something fast. The segment includes Jessica going the the cconvention for stutterers. It’s probably a good intervention for anyone who stutters, as everyone has experienced it and shares positivity. Jessica is basically told to accept it and feel good about it.

Caryn finished up the program and confronting her friends and people. She’s doing fine after the show. Tim went to the interview, the manager was willing to work with him, and he got a job. Tim was put on as a bartender, which the manager said although he stutters, his personality is great. So Tim is working and has been able to pay his bills. He goes to a therapist but shows no improvement. Jessica competed, didn’t win, and decided to focus on college. She feels good about herself.

A good episode, something MTV fails to produce most of the time. Shows how most stutterers go through their day. It’s not something people can just “turn off” or fix by “slowing down”. Bad misconceptions spread around.